Monday, August 14, 2006

William Shawcross: the arc of extremism

His Arc of Extremism column his available without subscribtion now at JP Online. Here are the concluding paragraphs,

In a thoughtful recent speech in Los Angeles Blair spoke of fighting an "arc of extremism." That extremism is Islamic extremism, whether it is inspired al-Qaida or by Teheran, whether its foot soldiers are Sunni or Shi'ite, whether they were born in Britain, or southern Lebanon, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or anywhere else.

As Blair said: The battle is over the values that are to govern the future of the worlds. "Are they those of tolerance, freedom, respect for difference and diversity; or those of reaction, division, hatred?"

"This is war," said Blair.

Alas, it is. Wherever they were born, the men who want to blow up airliners, who want to destroy Israel and, not coincidentally, who want to kill all hope of a decent society in Iraq - are Islamo-fascists who are united in hatred of us.

The sooner we in Europe understand that, and that they must be defeated, the safer everyone - Christians, Jews, Muslims, and non-believers - will be.